The Struggle of the Metro Workers of Granada

The leaflet below was issued by the Emancipation League whose appearance as a nucleus of the communist left we first welcomed in June this year. It demonstrates not only that the bosses are getting worried about rising class militancy (it’s a longtime since we heard the “selfish workers” line) but also that Liga Emancipación aim to have an impact on the wider working class as part of their formation as a nucleus of future world proletarian party. This is only to be welcomed. The brief introduction that follows here is from the Nuevo Curso blog from which this leaflet is translated. - CWO

The struggle of the Granada Metro workers continues. As we already mentioned in our previous article on the Metro strike, the comrades of the Granada Metro are announcing today that a 24-hour strike will take place to demonstrate their rejection of their present unacceptable working conditions,. The attitude of the employers, both of the management of the Metro system and the bourgeois politicians of the Andalucian council, is to just ignore the demands of the Metroworkers. This Monday, the mass assembly of the Metro workers will decide the future of the struggle, and if it is decided to continue the strikes, the Emancipation League will be supporting the Metro workers in their fight.

Below we reproduce the leaflet that the Emancipation League distributed in the demonstration that was held today.

When we workers examine our position in the company in which we work, we face two opposing forces. We struggle to receive adequate remuneration for our everyday basic wants. Whatever the bosses say, these are not “selfish needs” they are basic needs – such as decent working conditions and a living wage – basic needs that we would like to see given to all working people. But companies are more interested in paying dividends to shareholders – dividends that are paidfor by the workers.

The bosses have the nerve to ask us to get behind the company, which really means seeing our living standards worsen in order to pay more dividends. They have the nerve to tell us that the level of our pay and working conditions depends on the profits they make and that if they can’t pay their shareholders dividends, then our needs are not “fair” but “selfish”.

What is worse, some of the profits are turned into more capital that also has to produce a return. A return on this reinvested capital leaves even less for the workers who actually produce the goods and services. A society like this, which increasingly exploits and oppresses the producers of everything that is consumed in society is a world turned upside down. And this is the world in which we live. Out of this comes all the wars around the world, the destruction of the planet, the marginalisation of hundreds of millions of people ... And the only way to change things is to put human need before profit.

When workers defend their living standards in each strike, in each company, they show that a new and just world is not only possible but necessary; a world organised in order to satisfy human needs and not for producing profits to pay the bosses and shareholders.

A society organised around the idea of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs, is what is called “communism”. It is the opposite of totalitarian dictatorships, militarism and nationalism. It is for that society, the only one that can offer us a real future, which “Emancipación” is fighting for.

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About this blog

We are for the party, but we are not the party or its only embryo. Our task is to participate in its construction, intervening in all the struggles of the class, trying to link its immediate demands to the historical programme; communism. http://www.leftcom.org/en/about-us

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